Dating Tips: August 2026

Thursday, August 27, 2026

You Don’t Have to Do Everything Yourself

Maybe you’ve been single for a long time.

Maybe you got divorced and had no choice but to rebuild your life on your own.

Either way, you learned something valuable: you can take care of yourself.

You built your career. You paid the bills. You made the decisions. You solved the problems. You got shit done without waiting for a man to come along and rescue you.

That’s a strength.

But there’s a strange thing that happens when you’ve been self-sufficient for a long time: you know exactly how you like things done.

You’ve spent years making your own decisions, solving your own problems, and trusting your own judgment. So when someone else takes the wheel, it can be tempting to keep one hand on it.

He offers to choose the restaurant, but you end up choosing it.

He plans the weekend, but you revise the itinerary.

He handles something around the house, but you redo it afterward.

Of course your opinion matters. You should have preferences. You should speak up when something matters to you.

But what if everything matters to you?

If every decision has to be done your way, eventually there’s no room for his way.

Can you let him make a decision you wouldn’t have made? Can you let him solve a problem differently than you would? Can you accept “good” without insisting on “my way”?

Because when you repeatedly take over, correct, or redo what he does, the message he receives isn’t simply, “She has an opinion.” It’s: “She doesn’t trust me.”

Over time, a man who doesn’t feel trusted stops taking initiative. And nobody thrives in a relationship where they feel like they’re constantly being supervised or judged.

This doesn’t mean lowering your standards or pretending not to care when something matters. figuring out what matters enough to speak up about—and letting the rest go. It means recognizing the difference between “wrong”and “not the way I would have done it.”

Maybe he picks a different restaurant.

Maybe he takes a different route.

Maybe he loads the dishwasher like a psychopath.

So what?

Part of being in a relationship is letting someone else have a say. Letting him make decisions. Letting him do things differently than you would, even when you’re pretty sure your way is better.

And when a good man does something thoughtful for you, let it land. Let him experience the satisfaction of making you happy.

I’ve said for years that men want to feel needed and appreciated. That doesn’t mean becoming helpless so a man can feel powerful. It means giving a good man room to matter.

You’ve already proven that you can thrive without a partner.

A relationship asks something different of you: to create a life where you’re both happier together.

Listen to my latest podcast for more on how appreciation can bring out the best in the man you love.

Love,

Evan

* This article was originally published here

Thursday, August 20, 2026

Two People, One Steering Wheel

The habits that make you successful at work are often the same habits that make love harder to find.

If you’re like a lot of my clients, you may have become independent as a child because you learned you couldn’t rely on anybody else. Maybe you had an absent father. Maybe your Mom was an alcoholic. Maybe your parents fought all the time. The message you picked up was that you’re on your own and no one is taking care of you.

As an adult, you channeled it into something productive. You were intelligent. You had a work ethic. You could always count on yourself. Independence is vital to your survival.

Let’s first acknowledge that self-sufficiency can be a great thing. But limitless independence – as opposed to interdependence – teaches lessons that run antithetical to a healthy marriage.

Case in point: if your Mom was a mess, your Dad was a jerk, and you never trusted your ex-husband to get things done (pay the bills, take out the trash, listen to you), you have a template that reinforces that original message: you’re on your own.

But what happens when you meet a man who is different from that? He’s been successful. He gets shit done. He’s in his masculine and all he wants is to be able to do things for you.

And what does he hear most off when he offers?

“I’m too busy.”

“I can do that myself.”

“That’s not right.”

If men want to be useful and most of your messaging is “I don’t need a man,” he’s most likely to turn to a woman who sees him as useful.

This pattern frequently comes up with my most successful clients, who, out of necessity, take control to succeed in the workplace.

Think about that dynamic in a relationship with an equally successful man.

If you’re like most of my clients, you operate at around 70% masculine energy. That’s the secret to your success. It’s not being passive. It’s not about being agreeable. It’s knowing what you want and going out and getting it. Again, this is a good thing.

Now, picture the man you’re the most attracted to. He’s probably a lot like you – just a little…more. Taller. Smarter. Richer. Funnier.

Better yet, he takes care of things without you having to micromanage him.

Sound great in theory. In practice, we have two people in two people in the driver’s seat. Two hands on the same steering wheel. But neither one is willing to let go of control.

This is the biggest conundrum I’ve seen over two decades of helping women navigate dating and find compatible partners. You genuinely want a man to take care of you, yet it’s really hard to let go of the wheel when you’ve had a firm grip on it your entire life.

To be clear: I’m not asking you to change who you are.

But in a relationship where you want a man to step up for you, at some point, you have to let go of the wheel and let him do things for you.

Let him lift the heavy grocery bag. Let him make the dinner reservation. Let him do things his way without second-guessing and micromanaging.

None of that changes your personality. It exhibits respect and trust that even if he doesn’t do exactly what you want, he’s competent and his opinion matters.

In the healthiest relationships, EACH partner sands down their desire for control. I do this and most of my happily married friends have some version of the same thing.

Listen to my latest podcast to hear how to get it yourself.

Love,

Evan

* This article was originally published here